This was a rather gruelling game, which my opponent managed to win despite a very large setback early on - so all credit to him.

I started in the bottom left, quickly stretching up to the gems and securing the derrick by my base and the one by the tower. My dogs were on fire on the right hand side, eating endless numbers of enemy ones. However, the engineer I sent to the bottom right derrick was killed by a tank. So it remained uncaptured for some time.

Somehow, I had sent one too many engineers to the top left derrick. I decided to try and use the spare one for an engy walk. Meanwhile, I had gone for one miner and then straight tanks - much the same as my opponent seemingly. My opponent was in the top right, and didn't appear to have done a very good scouting - as my engineer walked right into the back of his MCV after crossing the upper bridge. I quickly sold it, using the cash boost to build more tanks.

Unfortunatley my opponent had already got his AFC up, and set about building a combination of rocketeers and eagles which he proved rather adept with. I built several flak traks, but quickly lost them. I turned to flak cannons, hoping I could tech up and go for a superweapon. I did this, but it turned out that superweapons were off. Back to the drawing board.

My opponent was building quite a few tanks of his own despite only having the one refinery - he was making the most of his slightly superior position at the top, which also enabled him to eventually take the bottom right derrick.

After a few scuffles, I lost my derrick by the tower to a small tank and eagle attack. I still had quite a bit of ore in my base though, starting to stretch the bottom left whilst building a lot of flak cannons and a nuclear reactor. I was going a bit crazy on base defence. I started investing in sentry guns and a tesla reactor to ward off his numerous tank attacks. I also popped for a clone vat, massing an infantry army consisting of desolators, tesla troopers, flak troopers and dogs. My opponent built his own dog army.

Eventually, he decided to attack. This was a big decision. I had a huge infantry army, a few fully garrisoned buildings, numerous sentry guns and flak cannons, plus my own tanks. However, my opponent managed to smash quite a bit of my base, before deciding to retreat. I lost virtually all my tanks, in the middle of a rather huge battle. I still had quite a few infantry units left, despite the damage inflicted by the dog army.

I decided to push forwards, not having the money to start afresh. My infantry army got to the outskirts of his base, fighting off numerous dogs and killing quite a few tanks, before a combination of rocketeers and grizzlies eventually did for it. Several of the tesla troopers were elite for a while during this, which was fun to watch. Coincidentally, my enemy also managed to get one of his eagles elite - something I haven't seen before, certainly not in a competitive match anyway.

Once my last charge was over, I deployed a number of desolators around my flak cannons in a desperate effort to hold on a bit longer. However, I hadn't noticed the elite grizzly at the back of my base destroying my nuclear reactor. I lost all power, allowing his rocketeers to rush in and eventually destroy the tesla reactors I tried to construct as well as my MCV. All he had to do then was find the flak cannon hidden behind a building, which didn't take him awfully long.

A very long and tiring game, where I probably spent too much on defense and not enough on tanks. Well done to my opponent though, he came back strongly.